Representative Poems of living Poets; American and English [Edited by J. L. G.] With an introductien by G. P. Lathrop

Introduction

BY GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited 739 & 741 Broadway, New York Copyright, 1886, By O. M. DUNHAM. All rights reserved. Press of Hunter & Be-\ch, New York. DEDICATED IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT TO THE POETS WHOSE POEMS APPEAR IN THIS VOLUME.

INTRODUCTION.

. i. HEINE, in that part of his Pictures of Travel which treats of Italy, gives us a parable in a single paragraph of min gled eloquence and satire, which may aptly preface a collection of poems by living writers. When the sun comes forth, he says, the eagle flies up towards it and, as he draws near to it, sings his joy and his pain. " His fellow-creatures, especially men, believe that the eagle cannot sing, and know not that he only lifts his voice in music when far from the realm which they inhabit, and that in his pride he will be heard only by the sun. And he is right, for it might occur to some of the feathered mob down below there to criticise his song. I myself have heard such critics. The hen stands on one leg and clucks that the singer has no ' soul ' ; the turkey gobbler that he needs ' earnest feeling ' ; the dove coos that he cannot feel true love ; the goose quacks that he is ' ignorant of science ' ; the capon chuckles that he is ' immoral ' ; the martin twitters that he is ' irreligious ' ; the sparrow pipes that ' he is not sufficiently pro lific'; hoopoes, popinjays and screech-owls all cackling and gabbling and yelling ; — only the nightingale joins not in the noise of these critics.

Caring naught for her contemporaries, the red rose is her only thought and her only song." It is, indeed, always easier to notice the shortcomings, than to perceive — if I may say so — the longcomings and the great qualities, in a contemporary poem. When we look back, the conditions are exactly reversed. The perspective of time, in

INTRODUCTION.

. the world of literature, instead of diminishing important objects, as the perspective of line and space does in the physical world, appears to magnify them. Or is it perhaps that we cultivate what may be called an intellectual astigmatism, which causes us to exaggerate the lines of height, in things past, completed and viewed from a distance ? We discern the great qualities, more readily than the faults, in works of a former time, be cause we have been taught to do so. But years of thought, a wise self-discipline and a reverent impartiality are needed, in order to detect the weak places in a recognized classic. Ad miration for the excellent performances of earlier generations has been much insisted upon, and for a long time. What we require just now, for the recovery of our balance, is something that the world will doubtless need always ; a better ability to discover and respond to the elements of greatness in the work of modern poets.

We extend any amount of charity to the meritorious singers of the past, for their partial failures, when our eyes are opened to these failures at all. But the charity is quite thrown away. They do not need it now, being dead. On the other hand, living poets, who are human in their moods, as well as in the imperfections of their art, would be greatly benefited and encouraged, if we treated them to a share of the effusive generosity which we bestow on those whose tuneful lips are dust, and the echoes of their last chanting are mingled with the winds. Dryden said, " If a poem have genius, it will force its own reception in the world. For there's a sweetness in good verse, which tickles even while it hurts, and no man can be heartily angry with him who pleases him against his will." His reference was especially to a satirical poem by himself ; but the generalization has been reasserted by many voices.

It is a complacent idea, in keeping with the natural belief of a prospering author. Yet what competent person will deny that there is genius in the poems of Landor, or, of another kind and degree, in William Blake's unstudied Songs of Innocence and

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. IX Experience ? And what sort of reception have these forced ? Even the triumph, the crowning light, the glory that are Keats's, came too late for Keats. By what costly and tragic sacrifices is not this process of " forcing " recognition often attended ! Surely it would be better for the world as well as for the singer ; a much happier condition for the world ; if it should learn to meet the poet's insight with an answering insight, quicker and more comprehensive than it generally displays. A great deal has been said about the inspiration of the time and the influence of surroundings, in their effect on poetic production. A tendency has been growing, to prove philo sophically that the best in art cannot be created under certain existing circumstances ; and we even hear something about a Dichterdammerung or " twilight of the poets," in America.

Out of such a philosophy must come, in the end, not merely twilight but stagnation also, and death. The genesis of the greatest poetry involves, first of all, an unbounded although silent and devout confidence, in the mind of the artist, that he can rise to the loftiest heights of thought or feeling, on wings of the most musical expression. He must believe im plicitly that he will one day reach those upper spaces, if left to his own manner of flight. If we are constantly telling him that the state of the atmosphere is such as absolutely to prevent any one's rising above a certain plane ; or that careful research has disclosed a fatal weakness in the wing-power of the present generation ; or that the measurements of his throat demonstrate that he never can give more than a small volume of sound ; — if we are always doing this, we shall be doing what we can to destroy that native faculty of self-reliance and joyous inspiration, which makes him a poet.

The mysterious levitation that enables him to rise above the general run of men, depends precisely upon this power. There is something morbid in the self-scrutiny, the instropection, the faint-hearted questioning, with which critics of our day persuade the poet X

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. to enfeeble his gift of levitation. Moreover, no system of reasoning upon the conditions needed for supremely good poetizing has ever made it possible to predict the rise of a commanding genius, or to prevent the advent of one amid circumstances which, at the moment, must have appeared as discouraging as any that can be imagined. Such a system may, however, as I have tried to show, bring to bear a spirit adverse to the creative mood, and so lessen the chance for survivals of the fittest, in literature. The circumstances nearly always appear discouraging to those who have to face them. Every age or period must have presented drawbacks enough, considered from the point of view of those who lived in it. Of this truth the individual history of genius, with few exceptions, furnishes terribly vivid evidence.

One after another, the poets have been hampered, thwarted, opposed, by poverty or hard and prosaic employments ; or by popular indifference, ridicule, ill-will. They have been made to feel that they came too late, or else that they came too early. They have been involved in all sorts of trouble, which would seem, in theory, ruinous to every artistic striving. Even where the harsher and more sordid necessities have been provided for, there remain the inflictions of malice and the uncertain, varying nature of their relations with the public. Words worth's waiting for intelligent and popular approval is the most striking instance of one sort of chilling trial to which the poet is subjected ; and some of the favorites of our day have had to pass through long terms of probation, during which they have won scanty foretaste, or none, of the honors that awaited them.

Tennyson, unnoticed on the publication of his first book, retreated into a ten years' silence ; Long fellow, although easy of appreciation by the masses and, in his usual experience, an exception to the usual hard lot of the song-maker, grew somewhat slowly into his full renown. His most original, his distinctively American work, the Hia watha, was for a long time laughed at and parodied with

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. more energy than was given to its praise. Remarkable, also, is the career of Robert Browning, in its record of misjudg ment by the public, and unsparing sarcasm of attack, with scornful derision, by the critics ; meeting always from Robert Browning the answer of persistent and sturdy composition according to his own mind. Without going into the question of how far the attack was challenged or the misjudgment merited, it is enough to observe here that everything which he brings forth must now be read by people of the finer in telligence, and — whatever burst of exasperation it may cause at first — gradually comes to be discussed in a respectful tone. These few cases, like others which need not be cited, tend to show that poets, in their development, do not depend upon the favoring influences of a particular period, so largely as some historians of literature wouid have us think.

Cer tainly, if WTordsworth had formulated the current influences around him, and had then made up his mind that the era was too disadvantageous for him, English literature would have missed one of its deepest revolutionary and reconstruc tive forces. Certainly, too, Wordsworth, going upon a theory of dependence on surroundings, would have had ample reason, in the outlook of his time, to conclude that it was not worth while for him to write. But when, instead of trying to estimate the opportunities and the promise of the present, we review epochs long closed, the problem becomes so much simpler that we are able freely to compare one epoch with another. Thus, by contrasting the riches and the poverty of literature in different times and places, we arrive naturally at the conception of certain periods as having been more benign.

Our difficulty is, that we gen eralize too broadly from this conception, and get to thinking that we know more of the matter than we really do. We fall into the way of attributing to a taste for poetry and a sympathy with poets, which we suppose to have been keener, more general and more active than the taste of to-day, an

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. immense efficacy in stimulating great poetry7 ; an efficacy be yond its real scope. If, as a question of stream and source, it were true that the height to which a poem might attain is governed by the appreciation it seemed likely to receive ; then this assumed supreme importance of the popular taste would be the answer to our problem. But, fortunately, the source of the best poetry does not lie in the applause of crowds : it is in the ideality of the individual singer. None the less, his utterance is meant for others ; it is inevitable that he should hope for some response from those who listen. There should be a delight to him, far beyond the poor pleasure of vanity, in knowing that his verse has borne to them what it first brought to him self — the stirring influence of high imagination; joy, courage, comfort, the good of noble emotion, the purification of true pathos.

Let ns remember this ; and remember to value accordingly the service of men and women who, in spite of discouragement, continue to hold up before us visions of the ideal, pictures of nature mirroring earth and heaven ; men and women who thrill us with stories or plays of passion that make the heart beat faster, and ought to make it beat truer. To speak frankly, I am not of those who, in commend ing some beautiful example of modern song — eminent, it may be, for a single well-defined quality — feel constrained always to make the reservation that it is the best of its kind " after Shakespeare ;" as if no reach of human genius could ever outspan Shakespeare, or even equal him in a single direction and within brief compass. Much of the popular indifference to poetry, in our day, comes indirectly, I think, from this servile attitude towards writers of the past, which has been taken up meekly by writers of the present and ratified by the public.

If subservience, without question or qualification, to the absolute lordship of that which has gone before be ortho dox, I must confess to heresy; and my impression is that a great man)7, were they to utter their honest thought, would

INTRODUCTION.

. XIII join me in dissent. There is no need of belittling Tennyson, Landor, Browning or Swinburne, in order to magnify their mighty predecessors ; any more than there is need of decrying those, in order to give grandeur to the later men. They are all stars in our firmament. What matter if one appear smaller, or shine with a differently colored ray? It may happen to be set further from us in space ; or it may actually be smaller ; but the quality of its light is still, possibly, just as precious. To apply mere earth-measurement to them is im possible : we must, if w-e would regard them with impartial comprehensiveness, use the lucid eyes and the large calcula tions of astronomy. There is scarcely a poet who does not pour us a measure of dross with his gold. Even in Shake speare — the very part of him which is generally admitted to be his true body — may be found an occasional admixture of triviality, doggerel or bombast, out of place and out of character, which would not be tolerated in a modern poet of high standing.

" If I speak enthusiastically," says Principal Tulloch, " of Shakespeare, and of the well-nigh divine wisdom of many of his plays, do I thereby receive all that Shakespeare wrote as elevating or good ? . . . Shakespeare in ordinary speech stands for the unity of genius which his works repre sent."* Similarly, there are dull or feeble passages in some of our best modern poets, the like of which will not be per mitted to poets of the future, although these last may be ex pected to reveal other faults, in turn. There is an inborn inclination among readers, aided by critics and commentators, to form sects, to proclaim dogmas and contend for them with a sort of religious ardor. But if we are to give to questions of poetic inspiration and artistic splendor a quasi religious cast, then it seems to me that the point for faith to seek is, precisely, belief in the poets of our * Movements of Religious Thought. Ey John Tulloch, Principal of St. Andrew's University. 1&85.

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. own age. The chief masters of former centuries have been accepted, with all their faults. It therefore requires no great effort of belief on our part, to stand up for them ; but a gen uine and -discerning quality of belief surely is required, before we can heartily recognize and honestly stand up for the modern poets, when they are strong and deserving of high praise. And it would be well if in making such confession of faith, we could banish the reservation that, however good a modern poet may be, he is always at every point to be rated below Shakespeare or Milton, for example. Do we fear that, by adding to the figures in our pantheon, we shall cheapen its character, or lower the value of the lau dation so long offered to the more eminent of the demi gods? For my part, when I am moved to rate Tennyson's Bugle Song as high as any of Shakespeare's lyrics, with a distinct note besides, which perhaps Shakespeare could not have struck ; or when I think one may see in Robert Browning a creative dramatic nature large and noble as Shakespeare's, as teeming with rich thought and often as superb in utterance, but different and new; — in these instances, I say, I do not feel that Shakespeare's glory is any way dimmed or im pugned.

Rather, it is augmented; and Shakespeare, with these later masters, is lifted to a still higher plane ; because, in the light of the recent achievement, that human genius which they all represent is seen to be manifold, wonderful, inexhaustibly productive. In this imperatively scientific nineteenth century, the mere disciple of belles-lettres finds only space enough to crawl around the edge of the earth, which is almost entirely covered and commanded by the Scientific Investigator's microscope. Happy, if he should not find himself glued to a strip of glass and placed under the scrutiny of that dread instrument of vision! For the poet is the only atom or insect which the exploring lens does not magnify. The scientific investigator treats the yellow -fever germ or the cholera microbe with

INTRODUCTION.

. XV impressive respect, and enlarges its appearance artificially, that he may get a good sight of it. But without any artificial aid whatever, he looks upon the poet and, by the simple shrink ing power of contempt, diminishes him to an imperceptible point. From Professor Huxley to Sir Lyon Playfair, appar ently most of the chief priests of the new hierarchy agree that pure literature not only is unworthy of analysis, but ought to be discouraged. And, above all, should poetry be con demned. But why is it that, when we must have a scientific theory about everything else, and trace the evolution of human thought in all other modes and directions, we do not take the trouble to discover any scientific law of poetry? Possibly it is because science is not equal to the task. Poetry can take up natural science in the hollow of its hand, examine it, estimate it — nay, is often able to forerun experi ment and give the first hint of the greatest theories or dis coveries to which science afterwards more methodically lays claim.

But science is as yet quite unable to account for poetry. The imagination which prompts all forward and far seeing movements of scientific research partakes, in the first place, of the poetic quality. But the purely scientific method of thought never can generate a poem. Which ought we to place foremost — the active, directing, creating impulse of im agination, or the passive one of systematic scrutiny? The suggestion is here made humbly, that if we are ever to understand scientifically the meaning and function of poetry, we must begin by abolishing superstitions. One of these superstitions is, that we must make unreasoning refer ence of all new work to the standard of supposed flawless examples produced in the past. The rational development of poetry cannot be a climbing backward along the slope that leads to some peak far behind us.

No ; it is a march for ward ; or, we may say, a ceaseless growth, which is just as important to us in its latest ramification or upward springing, as in its older trunk and roots. Writers are continually forced

INTRODUCTION.

. back into contrast with the old models, and advised to pattern their own work by them. The moment they do this — as in the frankly avowed case of Matthew Arnold — critics say : " How much better it would have been if you had simply trusted to yourself, followed your native inspiration, expressed things in an independent, inartificial way !" Thus the coun sellors go backward and forward on one line, but never arrive anywhere. They guide us to no real progress. Nor is it enough that we have a species of "scientific" criticism introduced by M. Taine. This touches merely the surface. It is not enough, that we should concern ourselves with the moment or the milieu — the influences affecting literature at various epochs. True scientific criticism will go into the heart and soul of the matter, and teach us how to discern and feel the genuine, interior quality of living poets.

This is the brief of my argument ; to which I will add only what Mr. Stedman has so well said, in his thoughtful and interesting volume on The Victorian Poets : " The fact that a man is not yet haloed with the light that comes, when in death or hoary age, he recalls the past, need not debar him from full recognition. A critic must be quick to esti mate the present." It is now time to review the witnesses, and let them give their evidence. II. They number threescore and ten, and their evidence is given in something like three hundred poems. The choice of the pieces by which they prefer to be represented is in some cases unexpected, perhaps. But, in a privileged ramble through the studios, when portfolios are opened and sketches brought forth ; and when the pictures that turn their faces bashfully to the wall are persuaded out of their hiding, to give us a silent welcome; it is often the rapid ttauche in black and white, or a confused mass of lines and color in a

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. XVII study, or some small, unpretending work carefully elaborated, which proves to be the artist's favorite. A collection of poems by many hands has a certain resemblance to an exhibition of pictures ; and, according to the way in which they are placed together, they may be made to yield various effects or give a new impression. This is one of the uses of a collection ; and since no collection can be made that will satisfy all per sons, it is pleasant to know that we have here one which ought at least to satisfy the poets themselves. They make a reception for us, in their studies ; they take down a volume from the shelf, or extract an old magazine from its coign of oblivion — as the painter turns his picture from the wall — and read us a few of the poems they would like us to hear. We find in these a reflex of nearly all the characteristic moods of daily life ; we find the airy forms of elusive thoughts, so delicately netted in the web of language, that they seem to be felt by the eye as the sight of a solid body.

We find ballads, idyls, narratives stirring, pathetic, elevating ; and things described that exist only to the imagination, but by it are made true and real— such as Aldrich's " Identity," or Matthew Arnold's " Forsaken Merman." There is much penetrating philosophy, also, subtle and terse, drawn out in a single line — like a thread of gossamer, which yet may reflect all the glory of a sunbeam — and drawn with the certainty that is possible only to poetic insight. There are many exquisite verses pencilling the page with shapes and colors of the outer world which we call nature. Indeed, the variety of subject is a noticeable fact of the book, when one considers the much plaint we commonly hear made as to a prevailing dearth of themes. One of the contributors ex claimed in "A Song Before Singing," published anony mously a few years since : — 11 Give me a theme to sing in man's behoof, As full of purpose as roy faith, O God ! — Red with our life-blood, firm in warp and woof, A homely product of the common sod.

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. 14 Or else let silence and primeval night Reign, as God reigned within his holy dark. Eons on eons till he called the light, And the first poet wakened with the lark." Yet he himself is represented in the volume by the "Count ess Laura," one of the noblest poems, of its length, that America or even England has given us within a generation. It is as natural to long for a great theme, as is it for a river to find a channel ; but the river makes music as it goes ; and so our poets, though their desire may not always be fully gratified, roll forth an abundant stream of song, with no lack of subjects which are valuable to us in various ways. De Quincey, in his essay on Wordsworth, concluded that, since the advent of that master, meditative poetry must have a stronger hold than any other kind upon the more reflective generations who were to occupy the future.

No doubt Words worth's indirect influence may be seen in much of the verse brought together in the following pages. There are many of the shorter pieces which belong peculiarly to our period, in motive and in tone ; which could hardly have existed before Wordsworth, because the taste for them hardly existed. But if this collection be significant, a fair review of it will not war rant the belief that the trend is chiefly towards meditation. We have De Vere's vigorous monologue of the Bard Ethell ; Tennyson's "The Revenge; "Dobson's dramatic miniature, " Babette ; " Edwin Arnold's wild " Rajah's Ride ; " Howells's " Pilot's Story " — than which there have been few more thrill ing poems written on Western themes. — Jean Ingelow's famous "High Tide;" Holmes's "Old Ironsides;" Mrs. Stoddard's spirited and touching ballad, " The Captain's Shield ; " John Hay's " Jim Bludso ; " and enough more to convince us that the impulse to give dramatic characterizations, or to produce strong, swift-moving narratives and impassioned lyrics, is still very thriving.

Foremost of all stands Browning, in illustrating a tendency the reverse of meditative, albeit so much of deep meditation is involved in his depicting.

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. XIX " Abt Vogler " and " Caliban Upon Setebos " belong to the Dramatis Personæ. and " A Forgiveness " to the Dramatic Lyrics. None of them have the dramatic form, but all are impregnated with that power of projection into the life, the thoughts of other beings, which is the prompting soul of the drama. Browning has this power in an intense, at times a marvelous degree ; and, in applying it to the lyrical and narra tive forms, he has developed almost a new kind of poetry. But neither in these nor in his plays is he objective, according to the manner essential to success on the stage. I cannot, however, agree with the opinion that makes him subjective. The truth seems to me, rather, that having thrown himself completely into the spirit and condition of his personages, he expresses not his own but their subjectivity.

In one faculty he is supreme. To explain, I must remark that the method of the drama has always been to condense the expression of the enac tors' thought or mood, until it becomes conventionalized — a symboL of what is going on in their minds, rather than an exact record. Browning, however, follows out all the complexities and sinuosities of reflection in his characters. Every important action, in the human being, proceeds from innumerable little turnings and twistings of the mind, flashes of revery, conflicting sentiments and impulses. All these Browning interprets better than the actual creatures could ; for, although we are sometimes aware that our motives are subtle and intricate, we are seldom able to analyze them. The very copiousness of his illustrations, his wealth of simile, his tangle of clause within clause, are the means of art which make it possible for Browning to trace the complexities and mirror them so wonderfully.

He does not present them literally, any more than the purely objective dram atists do. He merely employs another kind of symbol. His is diffuse ; theirs is succinct. But his way is equally truthful, and it is new. It not only presents the figure and the action, but also presents the mind, irradiated by a mysterious and vivid interior light. Nothing could surpass the boldness and XX

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. completeness with which he grasps the idea of Caliban, and bodies forth with an apt roughness the uncouth musings of the brute-man, on the nature of God and existence. At the same time the picturing of this creature sprawling in the mire of the cave, while " He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross And recross till they weave a spider-web (Meshes of fire some great fish breaks at times"), is effected by a few clear, masterly strokes. Perhaps Browning could not originally have created Caliban ; but it is also ques tionable whether Shakespeare could have brought Caliban's mind into view, under a ray so searching, luminous and com prehensive as that which Browning sheds upon it. Browning has discovered and conquered a new province in poetry ; the province of this present age, w7ith its habit of thought ; and he has annexed it to the great republic of past ages already bound together in literature.

I speak of him, of course, at his best ; and in his three selections we have him at his best. There has been no voice, in our time, more mellowly and perfectly turned to artistic cadences, than Tennyson's. Rarely, indeed, has it sinned by harshness ; hardly at all has its utter ance lapsed into prosaic movement or phrase, as Browning's has often done and as Wordsworth's used to, when the muse failed to keep her eye upon him. There is always associated with Tennyson a sense of the unmistakable poetic tone ; a resonance which we feel to be distinct from that of ordinary speech, as easily as we separate the harmonious breath of organ-pipes from the garrulous sharpness of a piano. " The Daisy " and the lovely blank-verse song, "Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain-heights," bring back this sense and echo this quality.